No more illusions about Putin

It's not McCarthyism to see him as an enemy of democracy

Vladimir Putin.
(Image credit: RIA Novosti/Reuters)

This is the editor’s letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

It's dangerous to aggravate Vladimir Putin. You could slip and fall out a fourth-floor window, like Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer for a prominent Russian whistleblower. You could get assassinated on a Kiev street, like Denis Voronenkov, a Putin critic who had fled Russia. You could get your country invaded, like the Ukrainians who in 2014 dared to overthrow the Putin puppet Viktor Yanukovych. You could get arrested and beaten for demonstrating against the rampant corruption of Putin's kleptocracy, like tens of thousands of fed-up Russians did this week. You could even have Russian hackers try to disrupt your presidential election, as our nation did last year. We do not know yet whether people connected to President Trump's campaign had any illegal dealings with Russia, but this much is beyond doubt: Putin is an amoral thug who loathes democracy and dissent, kills without conscience, and is aggressively conspiring to sow chaos in the Western world.

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William Falk

William Falk is editor-in-chief of The Week, and has held that role since the magazine's first issue in 2001. He has previously been a reporter, columnist, and editor at the Gannett Westchester Newspapers and at Newsday, where he was part of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes.